


No Man's Land

by colonel_bastard



Category: Barry (TV 2018)
Genre: Alcohol, Codependency, Denial of Feelings, Desperation, Drunken Kissing, Drunkenness, Dry Humping, Excessive Drinking, Hair-pulling, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, Loss of Control, Loyalty, M/M, Making Out, Manhandling, Manipulation, Neediness, Orgasm Denial, Power Imbalance, Rough Kissing, Self-Esteem Issues, Touch-Starved, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:00:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22783693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colonel_bastard/pseuds/colonel_bastard
Summary: “So,” Fuches says. “No room for a couch, huh?”And it’s funny, because even though Barry was perfectly aware of this fact throughout the entire process of moving in, it’s like this is the first time that he’s actually grasped the reality of the situation. That’s because this is the stage in the evening when they would usually crash side by side on the sofa to watch TV and get drunk. Now they’ve got the TV, they’ve got the liquor— but if they want a place to crash side by side, there’s only one option.“Uh,” Barry says, his eyes averted, suddenly embarrassed by this oversight. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ve just been... y’know, sitting on the bed.”Pre-series. When the boundaries are still blurry, it doesn't take much to stumble right off the edge of the map.
Relationships: Barry Berkman/Monroe Fuches
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	No Man's Land

**Author's Note:**

> at this point just assume that all of these fics take place in the same canon as [old habits die hard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19982761), which establishes my timeline for this relationship
> 
> anyway the real enemy is Toxic Masculinity and if these two idiots just let themselves be in love with each other then they would probably be unstoppable but instead they're going to keep panicking and setting themselves on fire
> 
> and you know it's not a real otp until you have [a florence + the machine song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCeRNpR09es) for them

-

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To call it a _grand tour_ would require a willful misunderstanding of both words involved in the term, but Fuches still acts like Barry’s shabby little studio is as magnificent and glorious as the ritziest upscale penthouse. He hums and nods in acknowledgement while Barry points out various fixtures— gas stove, central heating— and explains the origins of nearly every piece of furniture in sight. Not that there’s much to explain; it’s a lot smaller than Barry’s last apartment, with just enough room for the bare essentials. That’s all right. Barry doesn’t need much. 

Anyway, he’s glad to be out of the old place. Too many hours-days-weeks-months spent crawling those walls until he knew the cracks in the ceiling better than the back of his own hand, so that every time he turned a corner triggered a flashback of a flashback. He never would have uttered a word of complaint, but when his lease came up and Fuches suggested the move, Barry was quick to take the excuse. It was time to close the door on the old Barry once and for all. In this new space, he can be the new Barry— the one with purpose.

That purpose was the reason that Fuches suggested the move in the first place. They’ve only managed to secure a handful of jobs so far, but word travels fast and good men are hard to find. They’re already starting to get a reputation. Barry is good at what he does and Fuches is good at finding him reasons to do it. Although this was not his original field of criminal expertise, Fuches is no stranger to the underworld, where somebody always knows somebody who needs somebody to take care of somebody— and as it turns out, Fuches has a bonafide knack for bringing all those somebodies together. It comes as naturally to him as Barry’s knack for being the most important somebody in that equation, which makes the whole situation a perfect fit for them both. They could keep this up for years.

So Fuches figured that Barry should get a new place to start a new reputation with new neighbors. His months spent as the wretched resident ghost of his previous building made him too memorable— anyone questioned about his behavior would have had plenty of ammunition, and none of it good. Better to have a clean slate somewhere small and discreet where he could blend in and disappear. Fuches did offer to help out with the move— well, he offered to hire movers— but Barry insisted on doing the whole thing himself. It’s hard to say which of them was more surprised by that. Barry is amazed by how much energy he has these days, how much _drive_. When he thinks about the time he spent bogged down in solitary confinement on his couch, it’s as vague and distant as his time in the desert. 

Once the grand tour is complete, Fuches stands in the middle of the studio space and does a slow, magnanimous turn, taking it all in like a benevolent king surveying the castle of a loyal thane. Barry opens and closes his hands at his sides, weirdly nervous, feeling more like he’s back at boot camp and hoping to pass a room inspection. He just wants it to be right. He really wanted to get it right. He practically holds his breath until Fuches turns to look at him. 

Fuches is smiling. 

“It looks great, bud,” he says, his voice warm with approval. “It looks really great.” 

Barry lets his air out in a rush. “Yeah? You think so?” 

“Oh, yeah,” Fuches gestures at the bare walls. “Get a couple of posters or something up in here and you’re all set.” 

“Posters?” Barry glances around, utilitarian by nature. 

“Well, sure,” Fuches says. “You want the place to have some personality, don’t you?”

At the prompting, Barry instinctively nods his agreement. “Oh, yeah, definitely.” 

“But it’s a good start,” Fuches assures him. “A real good start.” 

He does another turn, hands on his hips. This time when he turns to look at Barry again, his mouth is quirked in amusement, his eyebrows raised like a teacher who just found an error on a test.

“So,” he says. “No room for a couch, huh?”

And it’s funny, because even though Barry was perfectly aware of this fact throughout the entire process of moving in, it’s like this is the first time that he’s actually grasped the reality of the situation. That’s because this is the stage in the evening when they would usually crash side by side on the sofa to watch TV and get drunk. Now they’ve got the TV, they’ve got the liquor— but if they want a place to crash side by side, there’s only one option.

“Uh,” Barry says, his eyes averted, suddenly embarrassed by this oversight. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ve just been... y’know, sitting on the bed.” 

There’s a beat as Fuches considers the situation. Barry feels a whisper of dread— _there’s no couch you idiot you dumb motherfucker you fucked up_ — but after a moment Fuches just points at the little dining table wedged up against the kitchen wall. 

“We can use that for a coffee table,” he says. “Go ahead and haul it over there.” 

Buoyant with relief, Barry practically bounds to obey him, dragging the table over to position it in front of the TV while Fuches ducks over to the kitchen to grab a couple of glasses and the bottle of Blanton’s that he brought over as a housewarming present. They sit down together on the end of the bed, where Fuches pours them each a generous portion of whiskey and then holds his aloft in a toast. 

“To you and me, Barry,” he says, and there’s something in his eyes, something that catches the light and makes them shine. “Here’s to a real good start.” 

Barry raises his glass in answer. “To you and me,” he repeats, and he’s amazed by how good it sounds, how good it _tastes_ , richer and warmer than even the whiskey that chases it. 

They nurse their drinks and make idle chatter while Fuches surfs the channels, lingering for a few minutes here and there before taking off again, always looking for something different, something better. Some nights he never manages to find anything that satisfies him, and he’ll keep blipping up and down through station after station until the wee hours of the morning, when he finally gives up and switches it off. Other nights he’ll get stuck on something that Barry really isn’t all that interested in, which is too bad because whatever Fuches chooses is what they’re watching. Tonight they get lucky and cry out in mutual excitement when they realize that Spike TV is running a marathon of _Deadliest Warrior_. With his usual quick canniness, Fuches hastily sketches out the rules of a drinking game— _drink for every destroyed mannequin, drink for every dramatic reenactment, etc._ — and then they’re off.

By the time they’re two episodes in, they’re both giddy and loud in equal measure. At one point Barry lurches to his feet to go on a long, red-faced tangent about how it’s absolute _bullshit_ that they did an episode about those fucking pussy _Army Rangers_ and they never did one about the goddamn _United States Marine Corps_ who are the baddest motherfuckers on the _planet_ and anyone who thinks otherwise can get _fucked_ — Fuches slaps his thigh and chants “ _Semper Fi Semper Fi”_ until Barry is laughing too hard to keep going anymore. He ends up slamming back down onto the bed with enough force to tilt Fuches into the divot he’s made in the mattress, their bodies colliding from shoulder to hip. The record skips, their laughter cutting out for one split-second before they scoot apart from each other and carry right on laughing like it never happened. 

They’re somewhere in their third episode— _Vlad the Impaler vs. Sun Tzu_ — when Fuches goes to lean back. It’s like he’s just missed the last step on a long staircase, his rambling voice cut off in an abrupt, startled gasp, his arms flung out and windmilling for balance as he tips backwards onto the bed. In the next instant Barry’s caught him, one hand planted smack in the middle of his shoulder blades and the other braced on Fuches’s arm to steer him upright again.

“Whoa, whoa,” Barry cautions.

“Jesus,” Fuches says. 

“You okay, man?”

“Yeah, yeah, I just—” Now Fuches cracks up laughing. “Shit, man, I forgot we weren’t on the couch!”

“What?” Barry makes a mock-scandalized face. “Dude, are you _drunk?”_

Fuches simpers and holds up both hands. “I only had one beer, officer, I swear.” 

The gesture makes Barry realize that he hasn’t taken his own hands off of Fuches yet. He tugs them away with a guilty start, hoping that Fuches didn’t notice, or if he did, that he didn’t mind. It’s trickier these days to find the balance between what’s all right and what’s too much. Usually Barry doesn’t know until he’s already gone too far— it’s hard to know where the boundaries are when they never actually talk about it. The past few months have essentially been a game of Minesweeper, feeling his way blind around the edges of their new arrangement and stumbling into the occasional bomb. He doesn’t mind. They’re bound to get it all figured out sooner or later, and in the meantime they’re sitting here and laughing together and that’s already more than Barry ever thought he would get. 

“Hey, uh,” he says, still laughing. “You can scoot back, if you want. Lean on the headboard.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Fuches chuckles. “Well, don’t mind if I do.” 

Barry never would have presumed to ask him to remove his shoes first, but Fuches does exactly that, toeing them off one after the other before heaving himself up onto the bed and using his hands and feet to drive his ass backwards over the comforter like a sled until his back hits the headboard. Inspired, Barry leans forward to pick apart the knots in his laces, wriggling out of his shoes and tossing them towards the ones that Fuches left behind, leaving the two pairs in a tangled heap. He’s about to move back to join him when Fuches says, “Wait, wait,” and gestures at the dwindling bottle of Blanton’s. Barry brings it along. 

They settle against the headboard together and Barry passes Fuches the whiskey. While Fuches takes a swig from the bottle, Barry looks back at the TV, where _Deadliest Warrior_ carries on with an examination of the merits of Vlad the Impaler’s halberd. Suddenly reminded of his previous rant, Barry raises his hand and paints an arc through the air that encompasses the empty wall space above and behind the screen. 

“You know what I’m gonna do?”

Fuches finishes his drink with a belch. “What’re you gonna do, Barry?”

“I’m gonna put up a flag.” He repeats the arcing gesture. “Right there.” 

“A what?”

“A flag.” 

“What, like a fucking— like a stars and stripes flag?”

“ _Fuck_ no,” Barry says, then places each word carefully with his hand. “ _United. States. Marine. Corps._ ”

“ _Semper Fi_ ,” Fuches intones. “ _Semper Fi_.”

“‘Cause— ‘cause they’re the baddest motherfuckers,” Barry explains. “On the planet.” 

“You’re a bad motherfucker,” Fuches says, and he presses the whiskey into Barry’s grip. 

It’s not so easy to avoid the divot in the mattress up here. Their shoulders are already touching, their bodies drawn inexorably together by the forces of gravity, among other things. Still, it’s not like they’re sitting even _that_ much closer than usual. It just feels closer because they’re on the bed. The couch was always neutral territory, a liminal space that didn’t have any particular weight or significance. The bed, on the other hand, comes loaded with both. Not to mention the change in positions— reclining against the headboard with his legs stretched out in front of him, Barry’s already halfway onto his back. 

In a foggy, idle curiosity, he tries to remember if they’ve ever actually _been_ in the same bed before. Oh, they’ve been close; Barry can’t count the numbers of times he’s woken from a nightmare to find Fuches sitting beside him. In the years after his father died it was a frequent occurrence, though by late adolescence he was certain he’d grown out of it for good. Little did they suspect that they would find themselves in those same places all over again after Fuches came and brought him home from Germany. 

_Germany_ — that’s the tug on his sense memory, the feeling that they’ve been here before— it’s because sometimes, even through the nearly catatonic fog of sedatives and tranquilizers, he thinks he can almost remember Fuches crawling into the hospital bed with him. Most of the time he’s pretty sure it must have been some kind of fever dream. He tries not to think about it as he takes a long, deliberate pull from the bottle. 

“Y’know,” Fuches says, his gaze wandering around the apartment, reviewing the highlights of the tour. “I’m, uh— I’m proud of you, man.” 

Barry almost snorts the Blanton’s right up into his sinuses. After one forceful cough, he lowers the bottle and turns to Fuches with wide eyes, half-convinced that he must have misheard him. 

“What?” he sputters. “For what?” 

“For— for—” Fuches gestures vaguely at the space. “For all this shit. The place. The stuff. The _gas stove_.” He shakes his head. “You just— you really pulled it together, buddy. You put in the work, and I’m— y’know. I think you did all right.” 

There’s a hot flush at the back of Barry’s neck, equal parts flustered and pleased. 

“It wasn’t that much work,” he demurs, tracing his thumb around the mouth of the bottle. 

“Yeah, well,” Fuches snorts, “for a while there it was too much work for you to take a shower, so as far as I’m concerned, this is a big step up.” 

They both laugh at that one, Fuches with a tone of affectionate exasperation and Barry with the self-deprecating air of someone who’s just been called out for a mildly annoying habit. It’s easy to laugh at the old Barry— the new Barry doesn’t have those problems anymore. As their mirth dwindles to chuckles, Fuches nudges Barry in the ribs with his elbow.

“See, I knew you’d snap out of it,” he says. “You just needed something to _do_.”

That much has certainly proved to be true. Barry has even started doing push-ups again, mindful with every repetition that he’s investing in a future that had seemed only recently not to exist. He’d given up on ever having one at all, resigned to becoming one of those people that doesn’t get found until days and days after he’s died alone in his apartment, and even then only when the neighbors complain about the smell. He might have actually managed it, too—

—if Fuches could have just left him the fuck alone. 

But Fuches stuck around. So Barry stuck around, too. And now, with a bottle of good whiskey in his hand, a sense of purpose in his being, and Fuches’s elbows digging into his ribs, he’s starting to be pretty glad that he did. Smiling to himself, Barry takes another sip of the Blanton’s before passing it back. Then, as the amber warmth runs down his throat and fills his chest, he shifts his weight and lets his head come to rest on Fuches’s shoulder. 

“Thanks, Fuches,” he sighs. “Thank you, man.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Fuches wonders, his tone light. “What for?”

“You know,” Barry mumbles, his eyes drifting closed. “For not giving up on me.” 

Fuches exhales. He raises the bottle halfway to his mouth, hesitates, then takes a hard swig and exhales again. 

“I said I’d take care of you, didn’t I?” he says at last, his voice reduced to a low murmur. “I wasn’t gonna leave you like that.” 

Barry smiles against his shoulder and says, soft and reverent: “ _Semper Fi_.”

This time when Fuches exhales it has a brittle, jagged edge to it. The next breath is pulled back in with a sharp hiss, and then they both go quiet. With his eyes closed, Barry can hear that the TV is still on, but it might as well be a million miles away and in a foreign language for as much as he understands it. He’s more focused on the sound of Fuches underneath his ear— the breath, the distant heartbeat— Barry wouldn’t be able to lean on him like this if they were on the couch, but the bed lets him scoot down and shrink himself until he fits just right, tucked against Fuches’s side like he was always meant to be here. He wishes he could get just a little bit _closer_ …

...but that’s a boundary that he hasn’t had a chance to test yet, and tonight is not the night to push his luck. See, the thing with Minesweeper is, when you stumble onto a bomb, it means you have to start the whole game over. Barry only knows he’s gone too far when Fuches gets up and storms out, which, to be fair, is a pretty effective way to make sure that Barry remembers every hard-earned lesson. It also means that he doesn’t dare set a toe outside of their tentative routine unless he’s willing to risk that loss. Maybe someday he’ll have the guts to figure out when, if ever, he’s allowed to be the one that reaches over to put his hand on Fuches’s thigh first— but right now more than anything he just wants Fuches to _stay_. That means all he can do is wait and hope and silently beg with the slight, subtle straining in his body. 

_Please touch me. Please let me touch you._

There’s the soft _tmp_ of Fuches popping the cork back into the whiskey bottle, which must be down to about a thimbleful by now. Barry keeps his eyes shut, willing himself to keep still, desperate not to mess it up by saying or doing anything stupid. He thinks, or he hopes, that he can hear a change in Fuches’s breathing. Oh, wouldn’t it be great— wouldn’t it be so great— _here’s to a real good start_ —

Warm, familiar pressure. _Fuches’s hand on his thigh._

The rush of anticipation is so intense that Barry has to turn his face into Fuches’s shoulder to hide his woozy grin, his arms clenched in a convulsive self-hug around the sudden leap in his belly. Fuches gives a rough chuckle of surprise and tightens his grip in response, which only makes Barry squirm even closer, the flush at the back of his neck spreading up to his burning ears, his knees clenched together in a helpless spasm. 

“Jesus,” Fuches says, his voice hoarse. 

There’s something unguarded in his tone that makes Barry twist to rest his cheek against Fuches’s shoulder so he can look up at him. He hadn’t realized that Fuches already had his chin tucked to his chest to look down at _him_ , and now the turn of Barry’s head has brought them almost nose to nose. After a confused beat, Barry gives him a dopey smile. 

“Hey, Fuches.”

Fuches looks too bewildered to smile back. “Hey, Barry.” 

Then Barry’s smile falters. This is the part where he’s supposed to slide off the couch and down to his knees— only they’re not on the couch anymore. He looks uncertainly down the length of Fuches’s reclining body and then back up at his face with a flustered, apologetic huff. 

“So should I— do you want me to, like, scoot down, or—?” 

He’s already starting to shift in that direction when Fuches says, “Wait.” 

Barry obediently goes still, his eyes instantly trained on Fuches’s face as he awaits his next order. It might be crazy, but sometimes he thinks he might even enjoy the orders more than anything else they do together. Fuches is staring at him in ragged silence, his brow creased with emotion, his pupils blown wide with something else. His left hand is still on Barry’s thigh beside him. And after an eternity that could fit on the head of a pin, his right hand reaches over to take hold of Barry’s face, his palm cradled at the corner of Barry’s jaw. Barry realizes what’s about to happen only a moment before it does,which is just enough time for his own expression to go completely slack with astonishment. 

Then Fuches leans in to press a kiss right over Barry’s shocked, open mouth. 

It’s a hard kiss, the kind where teeth knock together and lips get split, though Barry doesn’t taste any blood just yet. His eyes go so huge he could probably see in the dark, his open hands jumping up only to get stuck wavering between them, at a total loss whether he should push or pull. Fuches keeps his eyes shut as tight as his grip, his fingers curled around Barry’s jaw and digging into the faded material of his jeans. He presses his mouth over Barry’s like a branding iron and keeps him pinned there long enough to leave a permanent mark. It’s not quite long enough for Barry to figure out what to do with his hands, and they’re still hovering dumbly in the air when Fuches breaks off with a sharp intake of breath, his head jerked back like a hand retracted from a hot surface. 

Now his eyes are open, too. 

They stare at each other in mutual shocked silence. Fuches looks like he didn’t know he was going to do that until he was already doing it, and now he can’t believe he actually did it. Barry can’t believe it either. It’s so far beyond anything that he was ready for, beyond anything that he would have let himself even consider— it’s taking every ounce of his addled, unprepared mind to process what just happened, which doesn’t leave a single synapse left over to tell his stupid hands what to do, leaving them stuck out in front of him like he’s waiting to catch a beach ball. Fuches’s hand is still cupped at the corner of Barry’s jaw. Barry wishes he would say something, _anything_ to let him know where they’re supposed to go from here. 

But Fuches doesn’t say a word. He just stares at Barry with an expression that Barry has never seen on him before and yet recognizes instantly— it’s the same tense, apprehensive expression that he can feel on his own dumb face whenever he thinks he might have gone too far and stumbled again beyond the bounds of what this arrangement is allowed to contain. That’s how this works: Barry clicks around the minefield and Fuches tells him when he’s found a bomb. Now, for the first time since they started, Fuches is the one braced for the explosion, and _that_ is even more unexpected and disorienting than the kiss itself. That’s because, for maybe the first time _ever_ , Barry knows _exactly_ how Fuches feels right now. 

And god, what a scary, shitty feeling it is. 

That’s what finally breaks through the lock on Barry’s paralyzed limbs— the sudden, desperate need to reassure Fuches that _it’s okay_. That it wasn’t too far at all. In fact, as the silence between them turns serrated with their breathing, all Barry can think is that it wasn’t far _enough._

At last his numb hands ignite with purpose. First he wriggles his right elbow down to the bed between them so he can shift onto his side, turning his body towards Fuches in— _encouragement, invitation, **offering**_ — answer. Their eyes stay locked as Barry reaches out with his left hand to gather a deliberate fistful just below the buttons on Fuches’s polo shirt. He wants to say: _yes_. He wants to say: _that felt right._ He wants to say: _I’m so glad you did it first because I never would have had the guts to ask._

But he can’t. He doesn’t dare. He knows by now that the fastest way for him to fuck everything up is to open his mouth and say something wrong. The boundaries there are foggier than anywhere else. Fuches likes to talk, sure, but he doesn’t like to talk _about_ it, or to talk too _much_. Once he stormed out because Barry asked “ _Do you like that?_ ” in what he later deduced must have been the wrong tone of voice. Through trial and error he’s learned that the less they talk about it, the farther they can go, and right now he wants to go as far as he can get. 

So he doesn’t say anything at all. He just nods his head and lets his eyes do the rest, staring right into Fuches with every ounce of raw pleading that he can muster. Fuches stares back at him, mute and unreadable. The hand that was resting on Barry’s thigh has ended up, thanks to Barry’s own roll over, pushed into the space between Barry’s legs, that arm now pinned between their bodies at an awkward angle. The other hand hasn’t left Barry’s face. Barry tries not to lean into it too hard. 

The effort not to speak starts to burn like a breath held for too long. Without thinking Barry darts his tongue over his parted lips, only for Fuches to make a soft, conflicted sound in answer, a half-sigh caught in the back of his throat. It’s enough to turn Barry’s passive grip on Fuches’s shirt into a gentle, imploring tug. 

_Please,_ he says with his eyes. _Please,_ he says with his breath, his body, his trembling hands. _Please touch me. Please let me touch you._

Fuches makes up his mind. All at once he yanks loose his trapped arm and grabs Barry’s face with both hands, hitting him with a kiss that lands like a wrecking ball. 

“ _Mmph—!”_

Barry arches his back with a muffled whine, his clenched fist tightening in a spasm in Fuches’s shirt, his white knuckles pressed into Fuches’s chest. His gut instinct when Fuches takes hold of his head like that is to open his mouth in anticipation, so he’s already primed when Fuches pushes in with the first tentative, experimental probe of his tongue. It slips into Barry’s mouth with a wet heat that makes his eyes spring wide in shock, his own tongue slack with flustered disbelief, offering no resistance to the intrusion. He stares at Fuches in amazement and sees his brow is furrowed, his eyes closed— not in aversion, but in visible, determined concentration. As Barry watches, the expression intensifies, the furrow in Fuches’s brow reaching the bridge of his nose, his face contorted in something almost like a snarl as he tightens his grip on Barry’s face and decisively thrusts his tongue as deep into Barry’s mouth as it can go. 

That’s the last thing Barry sees before his eyes roll over in his skull. 

“ _Uhhhh._ ”

The groan rumbles around in his chest and escapes in fits and starts from under the blockade of Fuches’s mouth. On sheer reflex Barry works his jaw up and down in tandem with the rough, sloppy interrogation, Fuches’s tongue now feeling around inside of him like he’s trying to stake a claim over every inch he can reach. It’s so overwhelming that Barry doesn’t even notice when Fuches’s hands begin to crawl over his skull, not until they’re plowed into his hair and twisting in a sudden tug that jolts Barry’s whole body into a convulsive, desperate jerk that grinds his brutal hard-on against Fuches’s hip. 

“Jee- _zus_ ,” Fuches hisses, then immediately yanks Barry’s hair to make him do it again. 

“ _God_ ,” Barry pants, already wrecked after only two. “ _Hngh_ — fuck—”

Frantic for more, he fumbles his other arm up from between them so he can curl both fists around the collar of Fuches’s polo, dragging him into another kiss that connects with enough force to bruise. Without the elbow to keep him propped on his side, Barry inexorably starts to tilt over backwards again, too drunk and discombobulated to keep himself from sinking. Even then he refuses to relinquish his grip on Fuches’s collar, clinging on and stubbornly pinning their mouths together, so that when gravity pulls Barry down onto his back, Barry pulls Fuches down with him.

It’s a mess at first. Fuches has to throw out his right hand to catch his weight over Barry’s shoulder, his body twisted at an awkward angle to accommodate the position, their legs still stretched out side by side. Barry’s still a fraction too close to the headboard, and he fidgets down along the mattress to give himself a little more room to recline, a shift that forces Fuches to strain even farther in order to stay close and keep the kiss from breaking. Barry has an idea for how to solve that problem, and he nudges his right knee against Fuches’s left, urging him to follow the momentum that rolled Barry over onto his back and let it pull Fuches over onto his front. 

It’s an invitation that Fuches is quick to accept. With a grunt of effort he turns on his side, then swings his far leg over Barry’s nearest and brings his knee down into the space between Barry’s thighs, settling into a heavy straddle that drives the top of his thigh against Barry’s hard-on, his own now digging insistently into Barry’s hip. The sudden, stark reality of Fuches’s weight on top of him hits Barry like a sledgehammer to the chest, his head wrenched to the side in a wild, delirious gasp for air. He sees Fuches’s forearm braced on the bed beside him, the dark image of the snake and dagger tattoo swimming in front of his bewildered eyes like a desert mirage. Then—

“C’mere,” Fuches growls, and he uses the hand still clenched in Barry’s hair to drag his head back around for a kiss that knocks the breath out of him all over again, this time in a plaintive, keening whine.

“Hnnnn- _nnnnh_ —!”

Barry releases his death grip on Fuches’s shirt so he can fumble his hands up over his shoulders instead, his jittery arms snaking around Fuches’s neck to hold on tight. He just wants to _hold on_ — to make it last, to make sure it’s real— when his arms aren’t enough he hooks one leg around Fuches’s calf, pulling his weight even more forcefully against Barry’s tortured hard-on and making him moan into Fuches’s mouth. Fuches makes a harsh, rasping sound and rocks his hips in answer, grinding himself against Barry with deliberate intent. This time when he delves in with his tongue, Barry reaches out with his own. 

“Ah,” Fuches huffs in surprise, which quickly turns to satisfaction. “ _Mmh._ ”

He twists Barry’s hair to steer him deeper into the kiss, bearing down on him with his mouth and with the heavy grind of his hips, rocking them at a demanding tempo that spurs Barry into joining him, their legs squirming together to exert the maximum amount of pressure and contact. At first Fuches keeps his right arm planted to hold himself up, his other arm wrapped around Barry’s head, his fist screwed into the hair at the crown. Then he shifts his support to that elbow, freeing his right hand to reach up and cradle the back of Barry’s arched neck. The rest of his weight falls on top of Barry in a rush, their bodies tangled together in a hot, heaving struggle. 

“H’yeah,” Barry rasps. “Ughh, _yeah_ —”

Tearing his arms from around Fuches’s neck, he slips them under Fuches’s arms and up around his back instead, his fingers scrabbling to grab on to his shirt over his shoulder blades. He wants to crush Fuches against him until there’s no space left in-between, until they’re so close that they become a single target, fused and inseparable in the enemy’s crosshairs. They’re closer now than they’ve ever been before, and that’s definitely in more than one sense of the word. It’s not just the physical action of the kiss— although that alone is already lightyears past their usual arm’s-length plausible deniability— it’s the simple fact of the kiss itself, which is something so far beyond the realm of _plausible deniability_ that it almost rebounds completely back towards _outright confirmation._

Deniability of _what_ — confirmation of _what_ — Barry couldn’t really say. They don’t talk about it. He just knows that this is something he never would have consciously anticipated, and yet his body reacted as if he’d been waiting for it all along. He felt the exact same way the first time he slid over into Fuches’s lap and held on tight. It’s like there’s some sort of invisible wavelength between them, the kind that’s too low or too high to detect with the naked eye or ear, but something inside of Barry picks it up loud and clear and then somehow he just knows what to do. He doesn’t have that kind of attunement with anyone else. He wouldn’t have even thought such a thing was possible. 

And sometimes he thinks that the real reason they don’t talk about it is because there isn’t really a word for what they have, anyway. 

Fuches kisses him hard and deep, kisses him like he’s trying to make a meal of him, a meal after months of near starvation. It’s almost like he’s been waiting for this all along, too— like they’ve both been waiting for something, anything, that might tip the balance and spill them over the boundaries. Turns out that all they needed to do was get rid of the couch. Between the divot that drew them together and the way that it let Barry scoot down and shrink himself until he fit just right, the bed did the rest of the work for them. 

At this point the bed is a goddamn downhill slope and they definitely don’t have any brakes on this thing. It’s the bed that lets Barry squirm around in total supine submission, his head yanked back into the cradle of Fuches’s arm, his throat laid bare and straining as he desperately gulps down the overflow of saliva that keeps filling his mouth, his own needy drooling mixed with everything that Fuches swabs in with his tongue. It’s the bed that lets them crowd against each other like this, plastered together from end to end, their combined weight and friction building towards a mutual crescendo. 

That’s what’s really different, Barry realizes— they usually take turns. This time they’re doing it _together_. And he knows that it’s not really supposed to be, you know, like _that_ , but even so he finds the idea to be of sudden, startling significance. This is something they can do together. This is something they can _share_ — which means that Barry wants to share every single part of it. Quick and impulsive, he runs his hands down Fuches’s back to grab him by the belt, then hauls him up out of the straddle and down into the space between Barry’s open legs. 

And just like that, it’s not Fuches’s thigh that’s pressed against Barry’s hard-on. 

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Fuches grits out, at the same time Barry swallows down a thin, quavering moan. 

They’re at the steepest stretch of the slope and their momentum is out of control. Fuches grabs Barry’s skull in both hands and squeezes with enough force to make a diamond, then kisses him with twice the effort and ten times the heat. This time Barry does taste blood, though he’s not sure if it’s his own or Fuches’s, or maybe both. In a ravenous lunge he wraps his legs around Fuches’s body, knees hooked over his hips and ankles crossed at the small of his back, his arms once again thrown around Fuches’s neck. After a few awkward seconds of uncoordinated floundering, that invisible wavelength takes hold and they fall into a rough, clumsy rhythm, their bodies rocking together in a mutual rut. 

Barry can’t believe how hard Fuches’s cock feels against his own, hard and _hot_ , even through the clothes that keep them apart. That takes him back to the first time, too, Fuches steering him by the hips until they found each other— Fuches gasped “ _Jesus_ ” while Barry bit down on his shirt, almost delirious with relief at the confirmation that Fuches wanted this, too, that they wanted each other in the same stupid, senseless way. God, it doesn’t make any fucking sense. That only makes Barry hold on tighter. 

“Hrnh—” Fuches makes a low, guttural sound, his hands corkscrewed into Barry’s hair. “Fuck, _fuck_ —” 

He grinds against Barry’s mouth with the same feverish intensity as the rest of him, his beard scraping Barry’s face raw from nose to chin, the bristles at the perfect length for maximum abrasion. Barry revels in it, cramming his sensory input with every single detail of the experience, from the relentless burn of Fuches’s beard to the gravelly sound of his breathing, which comes in the quick, greedy gulps of someone chugging their favorite drink or wolfing down their favorite food, furious every time they’re forced to break and come up for air. 

“Uuugh,” Barry whines every time Fuches leaves his mouth bare. “ _Mmmnh_. Haaaah, god.”

The pounding in his ears matches the pounding in his cock, his pulse going at a jackhammer pace, his whole body throbbing like an open wound as he pulls Fuches down on top of him in urgent supplication. He’s going to come in his pants and he doesn’t even care because Fuches is going to come in his pants, too, oh god, they’re going to make each other come and it’s going to change everything— another minefield cleared, another level unlocked— Barry doesn’t even care that it took them so many tries to get this far. It was worth it. 

“Yeah,” he pants, so close to climax that his head tilts back from the kiss, his mouth hanging open while his body arches under Fuches’s weight. “Yeah— _hnh_ — Fuches—”

And maybe it’s something in his tone— something in the needy bucking of his hips— maybe it’s the clench of his arms or the choice of his words or just the fact that he’s flat on his back with Fuches on top of him grinding between his legs—

—but all at once Fuches stumbles to a halt. 

It happens so fast. Barry doesn’t even have a chance to react. Then Fuches plants his hands on either side of his head and pushes hard, shoving himself back to arm’s length to stare down at Barry in wide-eyed, dumbfounded silence. Barry stares up at him in paralyzed astonishment, mute except for his ragged breathing, his arms torn loose and his hands once again stuck hovering uncertainly between them. He can’t even imagine how he must look right now, his eyes huge with incomprehension and his mouth so flushed and swollen that it feels like a snakebite seconds after the strike. Fuches looks as flustered and disheveled as Barry has ever seen him, his body faintly backlit by the distant television, his face left almost in shadow. In the dim light Barry can see the dark line of a split in his bottom lip. 

For a long, tense moment he doesn’t know if Fuches is about to get up and storm out or else dive back in and finish him off. It looks like Fuches doesn’t know, either. 

Then, out of nowhere, Fuches laughs. 

It’s not a mean laugh, not a mocking laugh— it’s more like the way he laughs after he accidentally does something clumsy, like leaning back too far when he forgets he’s not on the couch anymore. Light-hearted. Dismissive. It’s the sort of laugh that’s meant to make sure Barry knows whatever just happened wasn’t a big deal.

“Christ,” he says. “I don’t know about you, man, but I could sure use a drink!”

Sprawled on his back, his cock still throbbing uncomfortably against the zipper of his jeans and the pressure of Fuches’s own undiminished hard-on, Barry forces himself to emit a weak, uncertain laugh in response. 

“Uh… sure,” he croaks out. “Okay, Fuches.” 

He reflexively unhooks his ankles from behind Fuches’s back, but he’s too stunned to go much farther than that. He just keeps staring up at Fuches in a daze, his breathing harsh and uneven, his mouth aching. Fuches has stopped laughing but he’s still holding on to the grin that came with it, the expression fixed on his face without ever quite reaching his eyes. Neither one makes any effort to get up yet. Barry doesn’t say a word, but he can’t keep his face from becoming one big unspoken question, his brow furrowed and his eyes burning with forlorn confusion. 

He sucks in a breath when Fuches shifts his weight to one hand and uses the other to take Barry by the chin. It seems like he’s about to say something, but then he just stares in frustrated silence, his thumb rubbing pensively at Barry’s bruised lower lip. 

Then, without warning, he disengages with a brisk pat on the cheek that comes off almost like a full-tilt slap.

“All right, come on,” he says, a little too loud. “Where do you keep the booze in this place?” 

He clambers backwards, using Barry as leverage to push himself up and off, hastily scrambling through the undignified scoot to the edge of the bed and then lurching to his feet in what can only be a burst of incredible willpower. Barry is nowhere near able to get up yet, and he watches like an overturned turtle as Fuches staggers over to the kitchen and starts yanking open cabinets, rummaging about for the liquor. 

“Just holler if I’m getting warmer,” he calls back over his shoulder.

Barry takes a moment to stare up at the ceiling and fight like hell to keep his hands from going into his pants. Then, just as that’s about to become a losing battle, he forces himself to roll over and follow Fuches’s lead, crawling on his hands and knees to the edge of the bed and then somehow getting his feet down to the floor. His legs are like a pair of musical saws, boinging and sproinging with every step as he totters into the kitchen and wobbles over to the cupboard where he keeps the tequila and the cheap whiskey. 

“Which one?” he asks, holding up a bottle in each hand. 

Fuches grabs the whiskey bottle by the neck, unscrews the cap, and takes a swig. Then, instead of passing it back, he holds it aloft in a toast, nodding for Barry to open the tequila for himself. Without giving himself time to overthink it, Barry pops the top and gulps down two big swallows, which turns out to be a fairly effective distraction from the nearly unbearable ache in his groin. He belatedly answers the toasting gesture with one of his own, which Fuches greets with a rough, hearty laugh of approval. 

“Yeah, that’s the spirit.” 

“ _Semper Fi_ ,” Barry slurs, belting back another for good measure. 

After that, things start to get blurry. Fuches keeps proposing toasts and Barry keeps tipping back the bottle. Sometimes Fuches reaches over and keeps it tilted up past the point when Barry should stop, but Barry doesn’t mind. By the time they’ve finished toasting the United States Marine Corps for the third or fourth time in a row, he’s almost stopped caring about the rest. He doesn’t even notice that Fuches is keeping his thumb over the mouth of the whiskey bottle, matching Barry in the act of tipping it back without ever letting it in. 

By the time Barry’s made it halfway through the tequila, the world is turning black around the edges and his head is filled with rusty nails and cement. He doesn’t even remember running for the bathroom, but the next thing he knows he’s clinging to the toilet for dear life and puking so hard that he feels like it’s going to turn him inside out. Fuches keeps rubbing and slapping his back, which only makes it worse, like Fuches is whacking the bottom of a ketchup bottle and emptying Barry out in big, messy splatters. There’s vomit coming out of Barry’s nose and tears streaming out of his eyes and he doesn’t even remember what he was trying to drink himself away from but it’s long gone now. 

“There we go,” Fuches mutters, thumping every last drop out of him. “Just let it out, man. Let it all out.” 

Ruined past the point of exhaustion, Barry collapses with his sweat-drenched forehead resting on the rim of the toilet seat, his body wracked with sick, painful spasms. 

“Fuches,” he moans. “Fuches, man, I’m— I’m in trouble.” 

“You’re okay, Barry,” Fuches assures him. “You’re okay.” 

“Hnnnh,” Barry whines, too wrecked to lift his head for the next round, leaving him to dry heave a generous puddle of drool onto the floor. 

“You’re okay, man, you’re okay,” Fuches keeps saying, so it must be true. “It’s just another part of the housewarming, right? You gotta break in the porcelain bus sooner or later.” 

He rubs Barry’s back until the bile runs out and the spasms dwindle to shivers. Then, without a word, he gets up and walks out of the bathroom. Barry is left sniffling and hugging the toilet, so certain that he’s just been deserted that he almost sobs in relief when Fuches comes back a moment later, crouching beside him to slip an arm around Barry’s shoulders. 

“All right, c’mon, buddy,” he says. “I’ve got you.” 

Reaching around to take Barry’s wrists, he gently disentangles him from the bowl, then takes his shoulders and coaxes him down to the bathroom floor, where a pillow is waiting for his head. The tile under Barry’s drained, feverish body is cool and soothing. He shudders with relief as Fuches drapes a blanket over his legs— between that and his horizontal position, it’s enough to give his body permission to fall asleep, and as soon as that floodgate opens he finds the release of unconsciousness rushing towards him in a tsunami wave. It won’t be long, now.

“Fuches,” he mumbles. “Hey, Fuches. Hey, man.” 

“Hey, Barry,” Fuches says, petting his damp hair. “Boy, you really let yourself go tonight, huh?”

“Yeah,” Barry pants, his eyes screwed shut. “Ah, shit. I fucked up.” 

“That’s okay, buddy,” Fuches murmurs. “We, uh— we all fuck up sometimes.”

“God— I’m sorry,” Barry moans. “I’m really sorry.” 

“Shh, shh, don’t be sorry. You don’t have to be sorry.” Fuches traces his fingertips across Barry’s temple and over the shell of his ear. “You just— you got a little carried away, that’s all.” 

Barry nods his sweaty head against the pillow. “Uh huh.”

“You gotta know your limits, bud.”

“Yeah, okay.” 

“Okay? Okay.” Fuches settles his hand on the back of Barry’s neck, as heavy and warm as his voice. “Hey, you know what? I think we should just forget about this whole mess. We’re gonna forget all about it, okay? Like it never even happened.” 

He says it like it’s supposed to be a good thing, but for some incoherent reason Barry doesn’t like the sound of it at all. He groans and tries to shake his head in protest, but Fuches just shushes him and pets his hair until he gives up and sags back down to the pillow in exhaustion, the last of his energy spent. 

“I know, buddy, I know,” Fuches mutters. “It’s not your fault. You, uh, you lost control. It happens.” He clears his throat and tries to make his tone sound lighter. “We’re just gonna be more careful next time, yeah? It’s okay. We’re okay.” 

Barry can feel his consciousness plunging down, down like an anchor dropped into the sea. Maybe Fuches is right. Maybe it is for the best. The new Barry isn’t supposed to lose control— that’s something the old Barry did, and the new Barry wants to leave that guy as far behind him as possible. Better to let this go, too. Tonight was supposed to be all about a real good start. There’s no reason they can’t move that start to tomorrow morning and close the door on tonight, leaving it in the past along with the rest of Barry’s mistakes. 

“Okay,” Barry sighs, almost gone. “Okay, Fuches.” 

“There we go,” Fuches says, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. “That’s my boy.” 

He stays until Barry falls asleep. Right at the cusp of oblivion, Barry thinks he feels Fuches’s mouth pressed to his temple like a branding iron— it will join the hospital bed in Germany as one of those strange phantoms that linger in his mind, somewhere between a memory and a scar.

In the morning he will wake up alone on the bathroom floor with a pillow under his head that he won’t remember putting there. He won’t remember much of anything. He will only remember that Fuches was here, and that he, Barry, fucked up again somehow, but that’s okay because they’re not going to talk about it.

And then he will stand in front of the bathroom mirror for a very long time, his fingers probing in a mixture of confusion and awe at the bruised, torn wreckage of his devastated mouth.

_end.


End file.
